The new New Pornographers album Together was released
this week. We see fit to mention this because it stands the
chance of being suffocated amid all the Broken Social Scene
and Hold Steady hubbub, and it would be a shame if that happened
because it’s packed with hooks and full of great performances—pretty
much what you’d expect from the New Pornographers at this
point. The indie-pop superband—which, in case you’ve forgotten,
features A.C. Newman, Neko Case, and Destroyer’s Dan Bejar—warms
up for their upcoming U.S. tour with a show tonight in Woodstock.
Will Sheff of Okkervil River opens: True Love Cast Out
All Evil, his band’s new collaboration with the legendary
Roky Erickson, hit the streets last week, and we’re not being
at all hyperbolic in saying it’s effing great. (May 6,
8 PM, $30, 291 Tinker St., Woodstock, 845-679-4406)

Korn

Northern
Lights, Thursday and Wednesday

If you were to ask us about Korn in, say, 1996, we would have
said, “There’s no way they’ll be around in two years.” Fifteen
years later, the band has won two Grammy awards and sold more
than 16 million albums. Who would have thought they’d be nü-metal’s
Pearl Jam? Of course they’ve also seen two members leave the
band to seek Jesus, and watched their creative stock go practically
bankrupt—but that all happened a long time ago. Currently
the band is warming up for a new album, Korn III: Remember
Who You Are, with a “Ballroom Blitz” tour that finds them
playing smaller venues than they have in years. It’s working:
Thursday’s show sold out, prompting the addition of a second,
on Wednesday. (May 6 and 12, 7 PM, $45, 1208 Route 146,
Clifton Park, 371-0012)

Austin
Lounge Lizards

Caffe
Lena, Friday

“Life
is hard, but life is hardest when you’re dumb,” sings banjoist
Tom Pittman of the Austin Lounge Lizards. Fortunately, the
25-year-old spoof band has to worry about neither. The overeducated
Texas string band sings clever comic tunes with political
relevance and observational wit in a way that makes life seem
easy, even if the lyrics are about longing to become “too
big to fail.” Listing Frank Zappa, George Jones, and Flatt
and Scruggs among their influences, the band lampoons a variety
of genres, all with hot picking and lovely five-part harmonies.
(May 7, 8 PM, $24, 47 Phila St., Saratoga Springs, 583-0022)

Cowboy
Junkies

Revolution
Hall, Friday

Hey, ever wonder what the Velvet Underground would have sounded
like if they’d been a female-fronted country band from Canada?
Of course, this is an overly simple way to look at the Cowboy
Junkies, but both the narcotic tempo at which the band often
moves, and the sudden success the band found with their low-budget
1988 album The Trinity Session has long begged the
comparison. These past couple decades have found the Timmons
family nestling further into the country side of their sound,
rehashing their early material with Trinity Revisited in
2007, and releasing the first volume of a project they’re
calling the Nomad Series, called Renmin Park, this
year. They’ll be joined by Ontario folk rockers Lee Harvey
Osmond. (May 7, 7 PM, $30, 425 River St., Troy, 274-0553)

Colin
Hay

Colin
Hay

The
Egg, Saturday

We’re recommending you plunk down your live-music dollars
here on the grounds that Colin Hay has had a pretty rough
2010 so far. Not like holy-shit-Nashville-is-underwater rough,
but still: In February, Hay and “Down Under” co-writer Ron
Strykert (the guy who played the song’s immediately recognizable
flute riff ) were on the losing end of a copyright-infringement
lawsuit over their international Men at Work hit. Thanks to
some too-litigious (we think) music publishers, the writers
stand to lose half their earnings from the song—most of which
are long gone, understandably as the song is nearly 30 years
old. Granted, Hay has had a number of other hits; he’ll be
OK. But still, we’re sure he’d be happy to see you. (May
8, 8 PM, $24, Empire State Plaza, Albany, 473-1845)

Mark
Knopfler

Palace
Theatre, Sunday

The legendary guitarist, singer and composer brings his rich
songbook, a crack band and a new album to promote (Get
Lucky) to the Palace this weekend. Mark Knopfler has been
a rock star since Dire Straits’ “Sultans of Swing” hit the
airwaves in the late ’70s, and has remained one through an
engaging series of solo albums. (Not to mention all of the
fine film scores he’s composed.) According to early, positive
tour reviews, he’s performing songs from every phase of his
career. According to the Toronto Globe and Mail, “the
presentation of his material was impeccable, [and] his own
playing often sublime.” (May 9, 7:30 PM, $51.50-$81.50,
19 Clinton Ave., Albany, 465-4663)

Also
Noted

Blues
great Taj Mahal is chipping away at his
fifth decade in show business; chip in when he
plays the Egg tonight (Thursday), with opening
act Fredericks Brown, featuring vocalist
Deva Mahal—Taj’s daughter (7:30 PM, $29.50, 473-1845).
. . . The “King of Romance,” Englebert Humper-dinck,
brings the love to Proctors Theatre Friday night
(8 PM, $20-$48, 346-6204). . . . Cold Day Memory
is the eighth studio record from Atlanta’s Sevendust,
whose current tour hits Northern Lights on Friday;
Saving Abel and Day of Fire open
(7 PM, $25, 371-0012). . . . The Dear Hunter
headline the WGFR SuperJam at Northern Lights
on Sunday; also on the bill are the Sleeping,
Black Mountain Symphony, Pillowhead,
and Curse the Mariner (6 PM, $12, 371-0012).
. . . Two chances to catch Austin’s Jess Klein
in the area this week: She opens for Blues
and Lasers at Bearsville Theater in Woodstock
on Friday (9 PM, $12, 845-679-4406); and Wednesday,
she’s at the Napa Wine Bar in Great Barrington,
Mass. (8 PM, $10, 413-528-4311). . . . Rhode Island’s
Deer Tick returns Monday night for a show
at Valentine’s; Sgt. Dunbar and the Hobo Banned
and El Duke are also on the bill (8 PM,
$12, 432-6572).